Welcome to the Sellon Solutions blog! I’ll be posting items of interest for discussion as I find them, and I hope you will contribute to the ongoing conversation. I only post when I have something to say, and I look forward to reading your input!
On the evening of February 1st, I attended an ASTD-NY eLearning Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting kindly hosted by Visiting Nurse Service of NY, and SIG co-chairs Enid Crystal and John Galto. The guest speaker was Ross Squire, the man behind the well-respected eLearning staffing and consulting agency, Knowledgestaff. I heard Ross speak at an ASTD event a couple of years ago and found him to be great at “reading the waters” of the eLearning business. I like Ross because he’s clear-headed, thoughtful, and tells it like it is. This session was no exception.
Ross’s evaluation of the current climate matches what I’m seeing, point for point. Companies who cut staff as a result of the 2008 Wall Street fiasco and subsequent deep recession are not restaffing in the patterns we’ve seen in prior recessions. Instead, in many cases, they are content making their fewer remaining staff members do more work. After all, it enhances their bottom line. Only if they really can’t get the work done in house are they looking outside–and then, frequently offshore. When companies do go looking for new workers today, according to Ross, they are seeking renaissance workers more than ever, people who have a strong skillset across a variety of disciplines, rather than specializing in just one area. Yet, interestingly, the promising spurt of client inquiries his firm has had in the last month is mostly for full-time staff positions, rather than freelance consultants. We’ll see if that trend continues!
According to a survey conducted by Ross’s company, the emerging trends in eLearning are:
- Social learning
- User-generated content (wikis, etc.)
- Mobile learning
- Outsources services
None of these is likely to be a surprise to you. The writing is on the virtual wall. Ross also reports that New York area learning executives have unanimously identified the following emerging roles as essential going forward:
- Performance consultants
- Community engagement managers (gatekeepers for social media, etc.)
- Talent management/human capital specialists
- Content librarians (to maintain data storage and access)
- Project/program managers (with global and language skills)
Ross’s talk also included his “annual tune-up” tips: a lot of sound advice about how those of us in eLearning should manage our careers in the face of the the current economy. I was very glad to hear him include a segment on investing in yourself. More than ever, it’s essential to stay on top of trends, and also just to give yourself time and opportunity to grow and learn. After all, regardless of the economic climate, you’re worth it!
If you ever have the opportunity to hear Ross speak, I urge you to attend. He’s an engaging and deeply knowledgeable speaker, and he’s genuinely there to help. You’ll be glad you went. To view his materials from the session, click here. And if you live in the NY area and you’re not already a member of ASTD’s New York chapter, I urge you to join; there’s a lot of great information being shared at their events. You can click their logo on this post to visit the ASTDNY site.
Well, this is one of those good news/bad news posts. The bad news is that it turns out I will not be available to teach my full-day eLearning voiceovers class at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions 2012 conference in Orlando this March. My sincere apologies to anyone who had already signed up; I hope to be able to offer the session again at a future conference, or you or your organization can contact me directly from this site to arrange a training at your site. If you were already signed up for the session in March 2012, I’ll give you a discount if you schedule your own session at your company.
So, why am I not going to be at LS2012 this year, much as I was looking forward to it? Because I’ve just been cast in a fantastic role in the first New York City revival of Richard Greenberg’s play The Violet Hour! It’s a funny and thought-provoking play, and let’s just say that my role represents a real opportunity to be seen at my best in NYC theatre. My character is a well-educated man on the edge, hilariously (and sometimes shockingly) outspoken, who is confronted with a printing machine that prints potentially life-changing information. Rehearsals start February 13th, and I can’t wait.
Again, my apologies that I won’t be at LS2012 this year. I was so eager to teach, attend lectures, and check out the annual Expo of new software and other goodies. But I understand why my agent submitted me for this show–it’s an incredible role, and an opportunity too good for me to miss.
The play is being produced by The Active Theater in NYC, and will run from March 9-25. If you’re going to be in town, I hope you’ll plan to see the show and say hello afterwards. I will post more information once I know it. Or you can click the logo on this post to visit the theatre’s web site.
I look forward to hearing about LS2012 from those of you attending, and I hope I’ll see at least some of you at the theater, too!
Well, here we are at the end of 2011! And suddenly the eLearning Guild’s March Learning Solutions 2012 conference doesn’t seem so far away. If you’re the person assigned to create voiceovers for your company, and you want to step up your game to make your work truly memorable, then my full-day certificate program on Tuesday, March 20th, 2012, is all about you. But if you plan to join me, you need to sign up asap–I’m only accepting a limited number of students so that I can give one-on-one feedback to each participant.
Visit my Courses page to read feedback from my 2011 participants, as well as a description of the course. I’m very proud of each and every one of my 2011 students–the improvement in their work after just the one day of training was nothing less than remarkable. And they each have a certificate from the eLearning Guild to attest to their accomplishment.
You can click the image on this post to read a description and the eLearning Guild’s web site, and there’s a handy registration button right there as well. See you there!
I’m delighted to announce that Heidi Fisk of the eLearning Guild has invited me to present an encore of my full-day certificate program in eLearning voiceovers as part of Learning Solutions 2012. I taught this pre-conference course for Learning Solutions 2011 and the feedback from participants was unanimously tremendous. Heidi does not typically repeat learning offerings from one year to another, but because I accept only a limited number of participants in my course, she has made a wise exception. So, if you wanted to attend last year but weren’t able to, now is your chance!
My session will be on Tuesday, March 20th from 8:30am-4:30pm. Learning Solutions 2012 will again be at the Hilton Hotel near Downtown Disney.
PLEASE NOTE: There must be a minimum of 10 enrollments in order for the Guild to hold the session, and for me to make the trip. They will be checking enrollments by January 20th. If you intend to enroll, please do so by January 20th if at all possible, so that the Guild has an accurate headcount. In addition, I am only allowing 15 participant maximum, so that I have sufficient one-on-one time with each participant in the course of the session.
This is an extremely hands-on session. I think if you were to ask any of last year’s participants, they’d say it was a lot of fun, and a lot of practical learning in an easygoing, supportive environment. Think of it as the most fun you’re ever likely to have at a boot camp! I wish I could convey to you the sense of satisfaction last year’s participants expressed at the end of the day, when each and every one of them audibly demonstrated how much they had learned in the course of just one day. If you look on my Coaching page, you’ll see some quotes from last year’s group. You’ll also see how much this course normally costs! I deliver this course for the eLearning Guild primarily as my way of giving back for all I’ve learned along the way in my own career. So I encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity: you won’t find better training on this topic for a better price, and it may not be repeated.
If you’re charged with creating the voiceovers for your in-house eLearning and communication projects, and you want to improve your script, your performance, and your recordings, then this session is for you! Click the image on this post to read a full description of the program. You can also register from that link. Browse through older posts on my web site to see more information about the course from last year. And feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
I look forward to seeing you in Orlando on March 20th!
I had a great time at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions 2010 conference, as teacher (voiceover skills, and presentation skills) and as attendee. And I remember being interviewed at the time about my impressions of the conference. So I was pleased to come across this video clip that gives a recap of the highlights, and features some of my comments. It really was an excellent conference. Click the image on this post to view the brief video on Vimeo. And start making plans to attend Learning Solutions 2012!
For the past two years, the eLearning Guild has asked me to present courses at their Learning Solutions conferences, and each course has met with resounding approval from attendees. Based on that positive feedback, I’m now delighted to offer you and your company those same in-depth learning experiences at extremely affordable rates. Please visit the Courses page or click the image on this post to read all about the three courses now available, as well as about a free sample. And don’t hesitate to contact me with any questions. These courses are all proven winners, and each can make a considerable contribution to your eLearning team’s success.
I’m delighted to announce that I now offer voiceover samples on my Voiceovers page. I’ve always had a commercial v/o demo, but now I’ve added a host of others in a variety of categories, including eLearning, Documentary, Animation, World Dialects, and more. A number of the samples are tongue-in-cheek, so I hope you have as much fun listening to them as I did writing and recording them. In addition, the new samples have music by my old friend Elliot Sokolov, a fantastic composer and a great collaborator who has created music for film, television, and theatre.
To hear my new demos, click the Voiceovers link on this site, or click the microphone image on this post to visit that page. If you want to hear more, you can follow this link to my acting web site where you can launch each of 10 clips individually from the links provided on the Voiceovers page there. Some of the clips contain more than one sample. On both my sites, I’m using SoundCloud and HTML5 to present the voiceover samples, so they should play on any device that supports HTML5.
A note about the music: If you want to know more about Elliot, or if you’d like to take advantage of his services as composer or sound engineer, I encourage you to visit his site by clicking here. He’s a great guy to work with, and can compose just about any kind of music imaginable!
I was delighted to receive a note today from Chris Benz, Director of Online Events for the eLearning Guild, letting me know that they’ve selected my presentation from last week’s Online Forum as their latest free sample of the kind of quality content that comes with Guild membership. I’m thrilled that my session was so well received, and am very glad that now you can watch and share this session even if you’re not yet a member of the eLearning Guild. Of course, if you’re in the eLearning industry, I would strongly encourage you not just to join the Guild, but to become an active member and share your own interests and expertise as well. I’ve found each of my experiences with the Guild to be great fun, and as always, my students/audience teach me something as well.
The session I presented last week was the opening keynote talk for the Guild’s Online Forum about incorporating Audio and Video in eLearning. My session touches on the basics of how you can use quality voiceovers to add that powerful “Human Factor” to self-paced learning content, as well as on how and when you might consider using human versus synthetic (or automated text to speech) voiceovers.
The recorded session is 75 minutes, including the various polls and chats, which are an organic and important part of the content, as that’s how attendees participated and shared their own great and thoughtful input. To view the session, click the Guild logo on this post, and you’ll find a link toward the bottom of that landing page. I hope you enjoy the session, and I hope you’ll come back to this site and share your own ideas and suggestions as comments to this blog post! My thanks again to Chris for inviting me to speak, and to Karen Hyder for her excellent support throughout the process.
Sorry not to have posted this before now, but it’s been a surprisingly busy summer! I’m very pleased to announce that the eLearning Guild has asked me to be the keynote speaker at the opening of next week’s Online Forum about media in eLearning. My talk will be 11:30 AM Eastern, and then they have two days of great sessions about best uses of audio and video in eLearning courseware. My talk is entitled The Human Factor: Making the Case for Voiceovers in eLearning. I discuss the importance of the human voice in online training, and how much or how little to use. I also explore the pros and cons of voiceovers created by real people (whether professional actors like me, or subject matter experts) versus the new wave of enhanced synthetic text-to-speech voices available in today’s marketplace.
If you’re in eLearning and not already signed up for the Forum, I urge you to click the image on this post, and explore all the offerings that you won’t want to miss. I’m very eager to sit in on the other presentations over the two days, as using media effectively in eLearning is more important than ever.
I hope I’ll “see” you online next week! 
Since the course materials for my certificate program on eLearning Voiceovers were only available in hard copy, I promised my students that I’d post the resource links from the Appendix to my presentation. So here they are in clickable PDF format. These are just some basic links based on things we talked about in class–comparing USB microphones, setting up a portable “booth,” and other related items of interest. If you have other links you want to contribute to this list, let me know, and I’ll add them as appropriate. Thanks! And if you have other questions, or things you’d like to share or compare, let me know. I figure the more we all share, the more we all grow. LS2011-P9-eLearning Voiceovers-Links & Resources
